First reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter carrying out a suicide bombing against Isil as jihadists draw within a mile of town on Turkish border
A female Kurdish fighter carried out a suicide bomb attack against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) jihadists outside a key Syrian town on Sunday night, a monitoring group said.
The woman, named on social media as Arin Mirkan, reportedly blew herself up at an Isil position east of the border town of Kobane, killing a number of jihadists who have surrounded and are battling to seize it.
It was the first reported instance of a female Kurdish fighter carrying out a suicide bombing against Isil, which has itself often favoured the tactic, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The attack came as Kurdish fighters backed by US-led air strikes battled Isil jihadists for control of the town on the Turkish border on Sunday.
Isil fighters had seized part of the strategic Mishtenur hill overlooking the town of Kobane late on Saturday, a monitor said, but their progress was slowed by new strikes from the coalition of Washington and Arab allies.
A Kobane local official, Idris Nahsen, said Isil fighters were less than a mile from the town, and that air strikes alone were not enough to stop them.
He complained of a lack of co-ordination between the coalition and Kurdish fighters on the ground.
Seven new coalition strikes against Isil positions were carried out in the area late on Saturday, the Observatory said. In a statement, the US military confirmed three air strikes in Syria on Saturday.
Turkey evacuated some border areas on Sunday as mortar fire spilt over from the fighting. One round hit a house on Turkish territory just a few miles from Kobane, wounding five people, medical sources said.
The source of the fire was unclear, but as a security precaution Turkish forces ordered the evacuation of residents from two small border villages.
They also fired tear gas to clear the border zone around the Mursitpinar crossing that has served as the main vantage point for watching the fighting for reporters and Kurds.
The toll for fighting on Sunday was not known, but the Observatory, which relies on a network of local sources, said at least 33 Isil fighters and 23 of the town's Kurdish defenders were killed on Saturday.
Isil began its advance on Kobane on September 16, seeking to cement its grip over a long stretch of the Syria-Turkey border.
The offensive prompted a mass exodus from the town and surrounding countryside, with some 186,000 fleeing into Turkey.
After first launching strikes against Isil in Iraq in August, Washington has built a coalition of allies to wage an air campaign against the group.
Britain and France have joined the strikes in Iraq and five Arab nations – Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – have taken part in the Syria raids.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Sunday called for joint efforts to fight extremism "and defeat it because it has nothing to do with Islam".
Turkey's parliament last week authorised the government to join the campaign, but so far no plans for military action have been announced.
Turkish media reported on Sunday that the leader of the main Syrian Kurdish political party – Democratic Union Party (PYD) chief Salih Muslim – was in Turkey for secret talks with intelligence officials.
Reports said the party chief was told the PYD should distance itself from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which waged a deadly insurgency in Turkey for the past three decades.
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